The month of April is National Poetry Month. It is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. In honor of this celebration of poetry I wanted to share a poem about one of my favorite family of critters in the forest, the Sciuridae, perhaps better known to some as squirrels.
I went exploring last week, just to see what I could discover on a cold winter day in February. What I found was abundant evidence of one of my favorite little critters, the Douglas squirrel. Throughout the forest the snow covered ground showed evidence of feasting, perhaps even gluttonous feasting in some places. This feasting was represented by middens. These midden were simply the remains of a squirrels meal, heaps of pine cone scales and cores.
I had an unexpected natural history moment a few weeks ago when the first group of Mountain School students arrived. They were restlessly waiting in the amphitheater to head out for their first hike when one student yelled, “There’s a squirrel in the tree with a cookie!” I looked over curiously thinking, a cookie? The squirrel did have something in its mouth, but a cookie? I had no time to investigate but made a mental note to check out the willow tree the squirrel was scampering around in later.
That evening I stopped at the willow and found a large piece of a mushroom on a branch. I was now interested, was the squirrel drying the mushroom to harvest later? Do squirrels cache mushrooms? It was almost like learning that Pika gather grasses and store them for the winter. I wasn’t convinced, this was only one mushroom, maybe the squirrel was startled by the noisy 5th graders and decided to abandon his lunch for a more peaceful setting?
